This tutorial will show you how to insert a foreign object into a movie with Premiere Pro 2.0. I used it in my movie "House, Tritter and KFC", where I put a bucket of fried wings and a box of KFC nuggets in the hands of detective Tritter to create a funny scene with him and House.
In the process you will learn about transparency, import, motion and scale.
1. Preparing the object - Transparency
Find a picture of an object you want to insert into your movie and open it with Photoshop (here it's the KFC bucket).
We need to create an image with transparent background. The problem with Photoshop is that background layers don't allow transparency. But here is a little trick to fix that: right-click on the background layer in the layer window and select Layer from background, then OK.
Select your object with the Polygonal Lasso Tool (Feather 3px, Anti-alias).
Polygonal Lasso Tool
Invert the selection with Select -> Inverse. Press the Delete key and voila! Save the image as .psd or .gif (not .jpeg!).
2. Importing
The nice thing about Premiere Pro 2.0 is that you can import almost anything into it. So import your movie and then also the previously saved picture: Import (As footage, Merged layers).
Set movie to the moment that you want the object to appear in and drag the picture into the timeline (as shown below). I choosed the moment when the detective Tritter comes into the scene.
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On the next page I will show you how to blend the object in and make it move with the person.
Lets now blend the object in so it will look like it is a part of a movie. The main things to focuse on are size, brightness and contrast and later also movement.
3. Resizing
You can easily resize the object by clicking on it in the preview window and then grabing it's corner. Then use the arrow tool and position the object to the desired place.
Before After
4. Brightness & Contrast
Make sure your object's clip is selected (click on it in the timeline) and drag the "Brightness & Contrast" effect to it's Effects window. Click on the small triangle to open the settings and adjust the brightness and contrast so your object will fit best into your movie. my movie was really dark so I had to lower the brightness a lot and with that also the contrast (they most often go hand in hand).
Before After
5. Motion - The crucial part
So now the bucket is placed nicely and it looks ok. But what will happen when the guy moves his hand? Well, it should to move with his hand. To do this we will use keyframes. I used simmilar technique in Shaking Earth tutorial, but there I only needed movement up/down so I only changed the y axis numbers. The situation here is a little more complicated because the bucket has to move in all directions. But fear not, I will explain it step by step.
First make sure you have your pointer at the beginning of the object clip in the timeline. Also click on it so you will see it's effects window.
In the Effects window open the options for Motion by clicking on the triangle.
Keyframes have their own timeline which is very helpfull but also very hidden. Open it by clicking on the little two-arrow button.
Now activate keyframes (toggle animation) for Position by clicking on the little clock icon.
All you have to do now is click on the object (in my case the bucket) and move it to the desired position for each frame or couple of frames.
In other words: move the pointer in the timeline and then move the bucket. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. You should see little diamonds appearing on the keyframes' timeline. They can be moved or deleted later.
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